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An anonymous reader writes "Research for the Public Utility Law Project (PULP) has been released which details 'how Verizon deliberately moves back and forth between regulatory regimes, classifying its infrastructure either like a heavily regulated telephone network or a deregulated information service depending on its needs. The chicanery has allowed Verizon to raise telephone rates, all the while missing commitments for high-speed internet deployment' (PDF). In short, Verizon pushed for the government to give it common carrier privileges under Title II in order to build out its fiber network with tax-payer money. Result: increased service rates on telephone users to subsidize Verizon's 'infrastructure investment.' When it comes to regulations on Verizon's fiber network, however, Verizon has been pushing the government to classify its services as that of information only — i.e., beyond Title II. Verizon has made about $4.4 billion in additional revenue in New York City alone, 'money that's funneled directly from a Title II service to an array of services that currently lie beyond Title II's reach.' And it's all legal. An attorney at advocacy group Public Knowledge said it best: 'To expect that you can come in and use public infrastructure and funds to build a network and then be free of any regulation is absurd....When Verizon itself is describing these activities as a Title II common carrier, how can the FCC look at broadband internet and continue acting as though it's not a telecommunication network?'"

Its worse then corruption... its incompetence. Basically its all too complicated for the limited number of politicians to manage and most of them don't really care anyway. So its all left to bureaucrats that often don't really have authority to do anything unless its kept quiet... which means there is a "don't rock the boat" mentality which means they just take the path of least resistance in all cases.

Now you could give them more authority... but then you wouldn't have even a fig leaf of democracy because

Decentralization isn't the solution to this. If you think the system is a clusterfuck now, just think about how much worse it would be if instead of one law there were 50+ (states + DC + territories) - or, thousands (county/city level). It would keep small businesses from easily doing work outside of one area, while allowing mega-corps the ability to even more easily venue-shop for their headquarters.

You want a solution that gives more authority to regional/etc. agencies? Simple: Allow each agency, at each level, to throw up a challenge to this type of shenanigans. Verizon pulled some bullshit costing NYC $4.4billion? Then NYC can turn around and enforce the Type II requirements, and send a ripple up the chain to have the feds declare it so nationally. However, you have to be able to stop some in-Verizon's-pocket federal agency from telling NYC, "no."

You ignore the public utility regulatory agencies of the 43 states that have them. This entire morass came after the TCA of 1998 and subsequent revisions of the FCC rules and regs brought on in the post Judge Greene rulings that initially broke up the Bell System.

Public utilities had to deal with all of these regulatory authorities, and then calculatedly lobbied to create US Federal control so that they'd only have to bribe-- I mean lobby and render campaign contributions-- to one target instead of so many. In-state vs Intrastate vs Interstate issues helped hold them to the floor.

NYC is not a regulatory authority. NY State is, as is the FCC, and to a smaller extent, the NTIA.

Decentralization was good for several reasons: rights of way and easements are local, even personal issues. These are last-mile issues. State issues concern everything from keeping infrastructure support fair and even (including low-profit/sparsely populated areas) to zoning policy, and so forth.

The FCC has evolved what was once called "data communications" as a separate classification, away from telephony. Now these things are the same, but the public's needs have evolved. Decentralization isn't so much meaningless as it's the ability to tailor historical infrastructure to locally evolving needs, and is better democracy.

It's time to conflate consumer communications into a single mandate, IMHO. It has to service we consumers, whether in urban, suburban, or rural areas. Whether it's a text, phone call via wire or cell, or a browser session, it ought to have to meet a set of basic standards, where consumers have well-known and flexible rights.

Public utilities had to deal with all of these regulatory authorities, and then calculatedly lobbied to create US Federal control so that they'd only have to bribe-- I mean lobby and render campaign contributions-- to one target instead of so many.

So, I'm the first to agree that we need to rein in the telcos. However, one of the problems of local control is a lack of standardization. Look how hard it is to collect sales tax when every little town with 12 houses in the US can establish a local tax policy. Now, imagine this town wants everything to be charged by the kilobyte paid by the sender, another town wants the costs shared between sender and recipient, and another town wants everything to be flat-rate-unlimited. Some town wants usage for eac

You're talking about sales models, not the wholesale carriage that telcos, actually datacom providers, are supposed to render. I'm not talking about parochial harrassment of companies, rather that regulated utilities ought to be scrutinized at both state and federal levels. The for-profit model that most utilities have changed to was a mistake. Shareholder profit, rather than the basic needs of basic infrastructure to be a world-class connected republic, is the rule.

This community is too smart not understand the virtues of decentralization in management systems.

Understand... I'm not trying to patronize you or slight you... just express my opinion here and hope you at least give it a look before rendering a judgement.

Here we go:

Think back to the old city states in Europe. Look at them in your mind on a map. Notice how at the center of each is a large capital city from which everything is run. Okay, note the history where in each of those powers going into nation states continually tried to expand. They'd eat far flung islands and various powers all over europe only to lose them again if they were too far from their base of power.

Note the continuing failure of those powers to hold on to anything that was more then about 500 miles from their capital city.

Then consider the great exceptions in this pattern... the colonial empires of Spain and England. Note that they had to employ a decentralized power structure because employing a centralized power structure was obviously impossible at that range. Notice how powers that previously were unable to hold on to things at more then 500 miles suddenly can hold on to things thousands and thousands of miles away.

Why? Decentralization. Limited autonomy.

Now consider the United States. The US is one of the largest countries in the world both by geography and population. Yet it holds together better then many powers a great deal smaller. Why is that?

There is a general lack of insurrection due to democratic and republican governmental forms. However, just as important is the state system where in local populations have a greater say in local administration then does the national system or people that don't actually live there. This ensures that government is more responsive to local issues, attentive to local sentiments, and that if there are conflicts of interest they tend to favor local interests rather then national interests. This helps bind the country together because there is less downside/cost to the union.

What breaks apart big countries is ultimately that the people in those countries decide it is in their interest to break up rather then stay together.

To help hold a union together, you want as much as possible for there to be few if any downsides to the union and as many upsides as possible. The instant it is more in the interest of a given portion of the country to break away then stay together you will have to hold a gun to their head to hold them there.

Holding that gun there is both expensive and unstable because the instant the gun comes off they'll likely slit your throat or equivalent.

Police states are very aware of this which is why they make a point of never putting the gun down. Examples of what happens when the gun gets put down would be the French revolution... bodies in the street, corpses hanging from rafters, and other fun stuff. A general explosion of violence against the authorities.

I'm going through all this just to explain my understanding of the basic political forces that hold large numbers of people together.

Now if you look at the US government, we have a federated system rather then a unitary government. That is, unlike France or England, the US has 50 states with limited autonomy as well as various territories that are afforded something of the same interdependence.

This is a hierarchical command structure. With lower and more localized elements given authority to make certain types of decisions independently while other nominally higher authorities are given responsibility over different decisions.

Ideally, you want the more localized systems to handle all problems that they reasonably can handle while those at the higher and more generalized level are left with either managing the interrelationships of these powers or dealing with miscellaneous problems that impact all the various states.

In effect, you want the localized systems to handle nearly everything themselves... really as much as you can pos

Understand, I am not saying the feds are evil or bad. I am rather saying that they have information overload.

Actually, it's worse than that. The Federal justice system is a complete mess and totally corrupt.

Take the example of the Gibson Guitar raid [forbes.com], which according to the CEO was incited by Lumber Union protectionists. After years and hundreds of thousands spent in legal fees, the warrant is still sealed. Really. And this is the way the Federal Justice system has developed since the 1980's.

Now I'm no Randian, or Objectivist, but I did read Atlas Shrugged in my youth, and this situation reminds me of the nati

The Gibson factory raid was a complete and unjust fiasco; another example (somewhat like the IRS scandal) where an entity is harassed and punished for contributing to the republican caucus, under pretentious bullshit justifications; in this case, "Illegal" use of Indian rosewood... which other companies like Fender (which contributes to the Democrat cause) used with no penalty.

The IRS scandal was just another made up scandal. Reports show that Dems were harassed just as much if not more than the repubs. Just goes to show you that you can trust the repubs just as much if not less than the dems.

However, if we're honest we'll see that sort of thing at every level of government.

I don't agree with that. That is, yes, there is corruption, but at the local and state level the system of checks and balances seem to be working well, even if it sometimes requires appeals to federal courts to correct (which sounds ironic, but it's not when you see how things are playing out). Those checks have broken down once you have federal enforcers. The bureaucracies are so powerful they have become impossible to fight. Even getting a court to hear your case is difficult and expensive, as the agen

It really depends. In many areas you're quite right but in others the corruption is deep and institutional. Chicago ad New Orleans are examples of cities that really need to be utterly wiped politically and institutionally to have a chance at being clean.

Detroit is also quite bad I've heard.

But then many other areas are very clean... at the federal level you'll see much of the same... some people and organizations are corrupt and others are not.

Decentralization for wire ownership is the answer. The wires are owned by local municipalities, and ISPs provide services over those wires. With fiber, there's no excuse not to go this route. The feds can tax and provide service to disadvantaged areas much like the Universal Service Fund now, in fact, there would need be little to no change there. Just that the wires belong to the local municipalities, and they cannot sell the property, only maintain and improve it as necessary. Cities, counties, states, etc, can work to improve the infrastructure, but at it's core, it's still locally owned. What else matches this pattern? Roads, railroads, the electrical grid and various pipelines all at least started this way, as does the global internet. So there's no reason this particular component cannot be handled this way at a more local level and finally remove the evil specter of Ma Bell and its wanna be clones.

As bad as politicians are at the federal level, they're even worse at state and local levels. The state where I live has a problem that all the neighboring states have too so I can only assume that it's like this everywhere in the USA. Basically our state Senators and Representatives are grossly incompetent and spend most of their time debating things and passing bills that have little use to the average citizen. The only reason that anything useful gets done at all is because we've had a tradition of (m

If specific states have a problem those specific states need to correct it. Don't drag every state into a giant federal clusterfuck simply because some states are run by halfwits.

then dont assume all central regulation is bad just because one current chairman is a former lobbyist toadie without the stones to use existing regulations to what should be done and label ISPs under Title 2.

two can play that game, and I'll win, because regardless of what you may think most government programs are actually successful and achieve the goals they set out to accomplish. and most actually go away once their mandate is met. several dozen come and go every year and you never hear of them, because

Allow me to repeat, indifferent to whether the federal regulation is bad for every single state, if it can be done at the state level then it is likely destructive to the independence of those states.

While you can overrule badly run states with federal policy, keep in mind that you're also overruling well run states with the same policy which has the effect of constraining them to whatever the federal government wants to do. Lets say for example a given state

You say I use a lot of words but don't say anything with them yet ironically neither of you presented a counter argument or refuted my argument in my post.

The unfortunate fact here is that I did offer an argument and a basis for that argument and your comment to my argument contains no substance what so ever. You make an accusation and do not back it up.

Kindly back up your position immediately or I will be justified in assuming you have no basis for this claim and thus your accusation will be void by defaul

If you believe your various political causes are more important then freedom or rule of law then by all means... put a gun to the heads of your neighbors and threaten to shoot them all if they disagree... You're in the right after all... You know best...... Right?

he also apparently doesnt understand the concept of a independent national regulatory agency, an agency specifically empowered to enact regulations with the force of law in a specific "theater of operations" (so to speak). he somehow thinks they are required to run to mommy for permission for everything they do, thereby uncercutting the entire concept of "independent". the entire point in being indepent is to keep them insulated from the pressures and vagaries of political "discourse", ie, lobbying and brib

You're giving them too much credit by ascribing this kind of thing to incompetence. Politicians know what they're doing, or rather they know whom to trust to do what they want. And what they want is to get re-elected. It is impossible to ignore the constant state of re-election campaigning that goes on now. Fundraising and servicing lobbyists are the responsibilities we ought to lift. Not the actual work of government. I think Douglas McGregor described the administrative overhead that appears as an o

I disagree. I'll take a corrupt politician any day over an incompetent one.

The corrupt politician at least knows what the right answer is and could very well control his corruption so that it does no serious harm. While an incompetent one can do the same or greater damage simply because they don't know what they're doing.

I grant that the relative evil of either is subjective. But in my personal opinion, incompetence is worse.

They should be hammered with this. Make it simple, so that staffers can relay the information. Make it a net neutrality issue. Make it a no-pork issue.
This is great news because it's a simple message. Someone needs to ask, at the right moment, "So Mr. Verizon Guy, were you bullshitting last year, or are you bullshitting now?"

To expect that you can come in and use public infrastructure and funds to build a network and then be free of any regulation is absurd

To expect a government to take decisions based on reason, morality or legality is naive. In what regards corporations, the only law is money, the only lawyers are lobbyists and the only judges are (corrupt) politicians.

If Verizon has made about $4.4 billion in additional revenue in New York City alone, they clearly had enough to pay for a lot of campaigning, lobbying and bribery.

First, verizon actually is deveral businesses in one. The internet portion is and has been considered an information service while telecommunications portion is regulated. The problem arises when those portions of the businessvare not separate from each other. The internet should be spun off into a subsidiary that leases access to the infrastructure to make it clear. Of course that would lead to others getting lessvrestricted access and cause competition.

It is the same problem with cable internet. Thecuse the regulated portion to build out infrastructure then ride the internet on top of it. It they were forced to separate and lease this out, there would be more competition for the internet all the way around.

But looking at verizon or comcast as one entity with obe type of product isn't accurate. The separation just needs to be more separated.

The internet should be spun off into a subsidiary that leases access to the infrastructure to make it clear. Of course that would lead to others getting less restricted access and cause competition.

While I agree I'd go a step further. I'd completely split the last mile off of any kind of service provision. Have a utility provide a fiber/wire/whatever to each house from a central office. They would charge each house a flat rate if it is used at a rate based on cost - just like your water bill/etc.

Within the central office the utility would maintain coloc facilities and would charge a basic fee structure for anybody who wanted to put equipment in there, and for the attachment of connections to indivi

Well put. GTE became Verizon Global Networks and was a very separate division. As it became integrated and FIOS was rolled out things became very difficult. They obviously chose a favorable way to request treatment, which should be expected. If they didn't have that support, they would have pulled FTTN and limited how much they were willing to spend going to the home. In the end, it would have set things back more.

But, the government should only allow a limited time monopoly for these services. Phase i

If I leave a package of Oreos on the floor and a toddler with no impulse control and no reason to have impulse control at that age anyway gets into the package and eats them all, is it the toddler's fault for being a toddler or is it my fault for leaving the goddamn cookies on the floor?

By throwing a temper tantrum until you cave and leave the cookies on the floor? At that point, you didn't give the toddler the cookies... you just placed them where the toddler would be pacified. The toddler is the one who abused your "trust".

That sounds a lot like politics... "I sponsored this bill, but I didn't realize it would be used for this."

How did it fall apart? I think his point was it's up to the parents to keep the Oreos out of reach, much like how the government should do something to prevent this behavior by Verizon.

And we don't just expect these organizations to behave like toddlers with no impulse control, we watch it happen regularly, and we certainly do need to rethink how we handle their criminal behavior. As for them not being run by sociopaths, isn't it already established that sociopaths are ideal candidates for upper managemen

More to the point, we need to reconsider how much autonomy we grant them. For a few examples, toddlers cannot sue people or handle their own money. They certainly aren't allowed to handle anything that could injure someone (or themselves) and they are not permitted to have an actual job outside of the immediate family.

Perhaps if the corporations want to behave like they're two years old, they shouldn't be allowed to be more than a social club. Telecommunications is too important to entrust to a toddler.

Isn't running circles around government regulation the oldest pass time in America. Look back at how effectively the Stamp Act was circumvented, 250 years ago. The more complex the laws gets, the easier it is to get away with things like this, because even the government can't sort through the complexity of the laws.

The solution is not more regulation, but simplifying it. If a corporation can make billions, by simply hiring 50 lawyers, or 500, to find a way to make billions, that is huge return on investment. Anyone who expects an efficient and responsive government is dreaming. The only effective solution is to make it so simple, that dodging becomes impractical.

The only effective solution is to make [regulation] so simple, that dodging becomes unnecessary.

FTFY.

Regulation (and legalese in general) becomes complex because it has to deal with all the crazy ways that creative, highly motivated, self-interested entities will find to circumvent it.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that more complex regulation is better. Regulation should be as simple as possible. The key to that sentence and the problem in your understanding of this matter lies in the last part: 'as possible'. Everybody can yell 'Well, just have every x below parameter y be illegal! Problem solve

Simple regulation can still be quite onerous. That's why industries lobby for exemptions for special cases. Low profit, high cost markets could not be served were the providers held to the same requirements that higher revenue markets are. And then the corporations start gaming the system.

What we need are less burdensome regulations with clear goals. You want more rural service? Relieve the providers of some of the urban regulations. But then watch them to make sure they aren't playing with definitions.* W

Verizon "as paid to Obama and legislative leaders, including House Speaker John Boehner, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and his predecessor, former Rep. Roy Blunt (now a senator), and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, as well as to members of four congressional committees charged with developing the laws governing its business.

The President’s re-election campaign and groups tied to it have been the largest single recipients of the company’s aid, the study found, taking in nearly $224,000. Obama has spoken repeatedly of his support for Net Neutrality but the issue received little attention during his successful re-election drive last year and he’s had little to say about it during his second term."

He has worked deep in telecom, and with Verizon. He already knows all of this, and is just playing a game with us. This is all a show, smoke and mirrors. Wheeler and gang decided this long ago, probably before he was ever appointed. I've watched the way the FCC treated anyone at their "public comments meeting" that stood up and spoke out - they where all escorted out of the room without even finishing what they were saying.

This is all lip service. Every single American could march in the street, and threaten to burn down every FCC office, TV station and radio broadcast system, and net neutrality will still loose. However, the blow back from this could be intense. "fast lanes" for corps sounds like a very juicy target, thanks for separating all those packets for Anonymous.

You are absolutely correct that there is no comparison when it comes to ruling for the moneyed interests. All you have to do is look at which party the moneyed interests make their home. Let's see, John Corzine, Tom Steyer. George Soros, Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, to name just a few.

I can tell you are partisan, because you made NO attempt to name any names that donated to the republican party. I'm not saying the Ds are innocent. I'm only saying that your comment is clearly biased. Do you think we can't find big donors for the Rs? Which do you think pulls in more money from special interests? I'm sure the data is there to find, and we can look at it in an unbiased manner instead of just spouting your own opinion as if it's fact.

The person I replied to said the following: "Bullshit. Democrats are crap, but when it comes to ruling for the interest of moneyed interests there's no comparison."
Yet, you responded to me, not to them. Which tells me that you are just as partisan as you claim that I am. For the record, I do not particularly like the Republicans, but they at least pretend to believe that people can take care of themselves. The Democrats openly proclaim that the "little people" need them, the elites, to take care of them.

It looks like apathy but in actuality it is futility. Shit is fucked up. I agree. You agree. We also both agree things are corrupted beyond what many imagine. So using your data set and going with the mega-corruption angle, are you really surprised that all of the runners got elected regardless of what we want? And how many times do we as a nation have to keep trying the same thing to see if we get a different result? You complain we gave up? In any other conversation on here, you'd say it was lunac

Your comments mean nothing without data backing them up. Actually, MOST of these comments mean nothing. They are factless assertions. Lets see some numbers. I think you'll be surprised how much money Wall Street splashes around, and how evenly it gets splashed.... Big Pharma gives out PLENTY to everyone. I don't think the media actually donates that much. I think you meant Hollywood. Anyway. Data or it didn't happen.

Bullshit. Democrats are crap, but when it comes to ruling for the interest of moneyed interests there's no comparison.

While the Republicans seem to pull in more money, there are certainly moneyed interests that invest heavily in the Democrats. The **AA and unions come to mind for starters. Then you have stuff like ethanol additives to the fuel which is something both parties can agree to as long as it means paying more for corn.

It used to be so simple. Democrats wanted heavy regulation of business and light regulation of what I do in my bedroom. The Republicans wanted light regulation of business and heavy regulation of what I do in my bedroom. There are exceptions to both generalizations, of course.

These days the Republications want to privatize profits and socialize risk. The Democrats are a bunch of spineless wankers. Both are entirely useless for anything but looking foolish.

good...let's get the false equivalence of arguments fallacy out of the way right now...

The only difference between the two faces of the Oligarch Party is the range of hot-button issues they use to create an illusion of real choice.

we can check this...we can look at the votes on *actual policy* and see which party votes for dumb wedge issues (creationism in textbooks, anti-abortion) and to enrich oligarchs by deregulating...deregulation is a Republican philosophy

Which party is trying to cut food stamps and unemployment when its a known fact these things helps slow and arrest the falling economy?Which party thinks the poor deserve their fate, and if they die younger, poorer, and more often to violence "oh well its a cultural problem"?Which party reguarly use dogwhistle attacks to appeal to racism, or openly ponders if certain folks were better off as slaves?Which party regularly denies basic science because "God said so"?Which party supports basic rights only for WA

"Cut unemployment", meaning put an end to the increasing length of time unemployment benefits have been extended. One might also ask "Which party wants a permanent underclass of people dependent on unemployment aid"?

"Cut unemployment", meaning put an end to the increasing length of time unemployment benefits have been extended. One might also ask "Which party wants a permanent underclass of people dependent on unemployment aid"?

You really asked that?The answer is republicans and their big business partners of course!Tool.

I think a different game needs to be played. The two party system needs to be broken by any means necessary, even if it means voting for people that you would otherwise consider unpalatable. Unfortunately, there are too many "lesser of two evils" dufuses out there.

So you ask for a lesser of 3 evils? Or 4 or 5? How many does it take to make it not evil anymore? I ask all of this, not in disagreement, but I'd like to know how you'd actually fix it. I hear the tidbit rally cry one-liners all the time but when it's time to put nose to grindstone, most have no actual plan.

There is no plan but if it were possible to have one, it would probably be something along the lines of voting for the most likely or most palatable that is *not* a D or R even if they *are* the most evil. At this stage, even a "less evil" D or R is an enabler for the evillest ones.